


flowers in his hair

by winchesters



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Barricade Boys - Freeform, Death, Gen, M/M, my favorite little poet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 11:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchesters/pseuds/winchesters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan dies with grace in his heart and flowers in his hair. He is not the first to fall, and he won't be the last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	flowers in his hair

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for this, guys. I just want to cuddle this cute little poet, and I don't think I'm alone in that desire. So naturally, I wrote a gut-wrenching death fic for him.

This is the way the world is supposed to end: not with a bang, but with a whimper. But his world ends with both, with a bright flash from a musket, and a quiet whimper from the little poet on the receiving end of the bullet. A soft, surprised noise leaves his mouth as the metal pierces skin and flesh and muscle and bone, ripping a hole through his body. He stumbles backwards, aware of his friends screaming and fighting and dying around him, and it hurts, it hurts so bad, and he presses a hand against his chest, trying to stop the pain, but it’s burning, tearing, clawing. Jehan has never been one much for prayer; his older brother entered a monastery but Jehan found holiness in small things: budding flowers, a ladybug alighting on a spring of grass, the way the sun reflected off stained glass in early evening. How it felt to sprawl in the emerald spring grass, his head on Courferyac’s lap, his lover’s fingers tangling gently in his hair. Yes, but that god, the god of small things and gentle things, was not here now, at the barricades, when Jehan lies dying in the gutter. And there is a strangled shout, and suddenly a dark-haired angel, surly a heavenly host with gentle hands, is at his side.

“Courferyac,” Jehan murmurs, because he would recognize those hands anywhere, his lover’s hands, so many times they’ve been rough and gentle and everything in between, exploring his body, tangled in his hair. And now blood flows between pale, shaking fingers, and Courferyac is whimpering too:

“No-no-no-no,” a stream of pleas and he is bargaining with God to let Jehan live, but it’s too late, too late and Jehan is slipping away, darkness closing in, and he wants to fight but he can’t, he can’t.

“Stay with me, mon amour,” Courferyac begs, “please, I love you, I don’t want you to die! Take me instead!” And there it is, the truth that no one was willing to face before now: Courferyac would gladly give his own life to the revolution, but he did not want it to take his little poet. Anyone but his little poet, his gentle lover with flowers in his hair. And Jehan is twining their bloody fingers together, as blood runs red between his lips.

“I love you,” he whispers, “I love you.” And then Jehan is gone, the little poet is dead, and France is missing another quick-to-fall-in-love young man, another handsome dreamer. And Courferyac is sobbing, the cries wrenched from his body as he gathers Jehan’s limp form from the gutter where he has fallen, and there are petals falling from his jacket and his hair, withered damp things picked up from the gutter, shedding like wings. And he dies with grace in his heart and flowers in his hair.


End file.
